Forest gaps around wind turbines attract bat species with high collision risk

Globally, renewable energy is highly demanded, leading to a recent increase in the number of wind turbines at forested sites. For the deployment of turbines, forest areas must be cleared, which results in significant habitat changes. To assess the ecological consequences of these changes for forest-associated bats, we quantified the activity of three bat foraging guilds at turbine clearings, adjacent forest edges, and nearby forest canopies. Specifically, open-space and edge-space foraging bats were more active at turbine clearings and forest edges than at forest canopies. Narrow-space foragers were also more often recorded at turbine clearings than at forest canopies. An increased activity of open- and edge-space foragers at turbine clearings may increase the risk for casualties. Therefore, if turbines need to be placed in forests, strict curtailment schemes should be practiced to mitigate collision risk for these bats. This may impair the efficacy of wind energy production at forested..., Please check description in the paper., RMD-files can be opened with R or RStudio (scripts were written in R version 4.1.3).
xlsx-files can be opened with Microsoft Excel or alternative spreadsheet., # Title of Dataset: Forest gaps around wind turbines attract bat species with high collision risk

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Provided tables assembly data from a study at wind turbine sites within forests.
We sampled acoustic bat data at wind turbine clearings, clearing edges and the adjacent forest and environmental variables on plot level.

echolocation_bat_data.xlsx contains the number of minutes with bat activity for each bat foraging guild, habitat, plot, and moth of sampling.
foraging_bat_data.xlsx additionally contains the number of feeding buzzes as indicators for foraging activity.
site_parameters.xlsx compiles for each plot the forest type (deciduous, coniferous), age, rotor diameter and tower height of wind turbines as well as clearing size.

Effects of habitat and a selection of environmental variables on bat echolocation and foraging activity was assessed with generalized linear mixed effect models (GLMM).
Results show, that especially bats of the open-space and edge-space foraging guild are mo...